The City In City Maps

The destruction to traditional urban morphology caused by contemporary urbanization in China is an obvious issue. As an existing phenomenon, how can we understand it, and how can we explain it? Shall we blindly condemn it, or shall we imperturbably analyze its cause and find a proper solution?The transformation of apparent city form can never be explained physically. They result from human activities and are affected by our minds. City map is a judgment, more than a record to a city. Its concreteness objectively imitates the realistic city form, while its abstractness reflects the maker' s attitude towards the city. Large quantities of maps in history extend our vision to the evolution of the city, helping us to find explanations form its tradition.Mapping technique may affect a map' s concreteness and abstractness. Generally speaking, the more advanced it is, the more realistic a city map will look like, and the less clear the subjective expression will be. However, mapping technique only works as a tool to change forms. The real reason for all transformation is the meaning behind forms. They are expressed through the cognition of maps, which artificially abstracting physical city forms into symbolic expressions under the influence of human thinking. Mapping cognition reflects human understandings to urban environment in a certain cultural background. Thus, neither two-dimensional drawings nor three-dimensional cities are pure explicit presentations, but has their immanent reasons.The different developing contrail of eastern and western cities directly results from their attitudes. Our stand is to treat today' s problems or difficulties on the basis of particular Chinese urban character and positively seek for an answer.